Immediate Gratification: Priceless

There used to be some rather clever credit card commercials. They would show a happy family doing some sort of activity together. For example, a mother and her grown daughter might be having an afternoon together. They go over the price of the various things they did. Lattes: $14. Perfect purse found in a flea market: $45. Lunch out: $60. New outfit for the mother: $390. Making Mom feel young again: Priceless.

It was a very clever marketing campaign because it linked money spent with emotional fulfillment. In essence, it was saying: does it really matter how much you spend on the details when the end result brings so much emotional fulfillment?  Besides, who needs the money right now when you’ve got credit and can worry about it later? Credit seems to be the answer to all the stress. You can keep up with appearances without having the ready cash. You can just charge it, and forget it! Well, you can forget it until the bill comes in, but even then, the minimum payment is quite reasonable.

However, credit is severely out of hand. One in seven Americans has ten or more credit cards. That is ten minimum payments to make every month! Another one in seven Americans has seven or more credit cards. The average American carries four credit cards. (Lewis) Half of all Americans have credit card debt, and one third of those with debt only pay their minimum payments and do nothing further to pay off their loan. (Ossowski) Over all, Americans have over $800 billion in credit card debt. This has turned into a big problem.

The reason for America’s credit card debt is that we don’t want to wait. We want immediate gratification. We see it, we want it, and we buy it. We think of credit as money in our pockets, when in reality, it is the bank’s money that we are merrily spending … money that the bank will eventually want back with exorbitant interest. The credit card companies seem so friendly. They offer you credit card after credit card, even raising your limit on your existing cards after you’ve “proven” you can make some payments! You want a vacation, there’s a card for it. You want new clothes? There’s another card for it. You want a new computer, iPod, cell phone or PDA? There’s a card for it! They are stumbling over themselves to give us credit cards, and it feels like free money! Wow, thanks guys, I guess I can afford it, after all! But they don’t stay friendly. If you start missing payments, they send collection agencies after you who call day and night, nagging, intimidating and pestering. What do they want? The money back! But once it’s spent, what do you do?

Some people use one credit card to pay the minimum payment for another card. They have a circle of cards paying the minimum balance for each other, but when you are only paying the minimum balance, it will take years and years to pay off that debt. It can be a staggering load. The pressure mounts.

The story is told about a meeting held by the devil for his evil angels. “We can’t stop Christians from going to church,” he told them. “We can’t stop them from praying or even reading their Bibles. So don’t even try that! Here is the new plan: We’re going to make them busy. That’s right, busy! We’ll show them shiny things they want to buy and we’ll give them credit cards to do it with. We’ll poke them and prod them into being jealous of their neighbors and friends so that they feel the need to compete on every level. We’ll flash commercials in front of them and tell them that they need all the things they see. They’ll keep buying and spending, buying and spending, and eventually they will have to work overtime or take a second job. They won’t spend time with their families, and they will try to use gifts and money to take their place when they aren’t at home. Their families will fall apart. They will be stressed out from all the work with  no breaks. They will be so busy trying to keep up with everyone around them, that they won’t have time for the things that bring true happiness! And then we have won!”

The devil has a plan, and so far it has worked smashingly well. Life has gotten so complicated that we don’t have time for our families anymore. We don’t have time for relaxing, thinking, praying and meditating. We don’t have time to build relationships or notice when an established relationship is falling apart. We don’t notice the warning signs in our marriages and we are too occupied to see other people around us who could use a helping hand. We are so busy trying to pay for everything we keep buying, that we don’t see God’s will for our lives anymore; we don’t see His plan for us. All we see is the endless cycle of buying and paying, buying and paying. Life has gotten very complicated, indeed.